


Son of an Unfurled Lotus

by Erica45



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Pre-Canon, Ursa (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, or she tries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erica45/pseuds/Erica45
Summary: The light touch on his cheek felt familiar but Zuko flinched away from it anyway. Half of his face burned with residual fire, pulling him back into the black. He wanted to give in to it, hide from all this pain, but a voice echoed in his head.Remember, never give up without a fight. You have to keep fighting.Mom?No, mom was gone.In another time, in another world, when Ursa fled the grand city of Caldera, she fled home, to the life she'd left behind. Not in this one, she fled elsewhere, with the thought of her children always on her mind. She never thought that the son she left behind would suffer in a way she never could have imagined.
Relationships: Iroh & Ursa (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	Son of an Unfurled Lotus

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, disclaimer, I've read none of the comics so the Ursa that I'm writing will have elements that I've absorbed through other media but that's basically it. 
> 
> This is written for fun, something I'm doing in my spare time so updates will be all over the place but I'll keep writing as I go. Basically through my viewings of many (too many) fics, I didn't find a lot playing with the idea of if Ursa had been more involved in Zuko's life. Not saying that they're not out there, just that I didn't come across them. So, this is my take on it. 
> 
> This fic is inspired by so many different things, I can't even keep track of them in my own head. [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/pseuds/MuffinLance) is probably one of them, and so would be [aeoleus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeoleus/pseuds/aeoleus)
> 
> I hope you guys like it.

Her heart beating rapidly behind her ribs, Ursa made her way down the dimly lit halls of the grand palace that was her cage. Her steps were hurried but slow enough to fool people that she was only out for a walk. However, each little tap of her shoes on the cold stone felt like thunder rolling in her ears, loudly announcing what she had done. Each brush of air against her skin accusingly pointing out the faint whiff of dried herbs on her hands, the sweet yet bitter scent of a plant that, if mixed with another, was a deadly poison. 

Finally, she came to a familiar set of doors and gently pushed them open, slipping inside. The room was darker than the hall, causing her to blink a few times. Once she could see, she made her way to the large bed in the center, where a lump was curled under the covers. 

"Zuko," she whispered, lightly touching a tense shoulder. 

Her son stiffened further, a noise that sounded suspicious like a sob getting caught in his throat. His golden eyes—burning like small suns—flew open and his gaze jerked to her, wide with fear. 

"Mom!" he gasped and bolted upright, terror replaced with relief. 

"Shhh," Ursa urged him quickly, her own fear throbbing in her chest. 

He clapped his hands over his mouth, and she almost chuckled at the childish action, but instead it lodged in her throat. She cleared it and sat beside him, grabbing his shoulders.

“Zuko, please, my love, listen to me,” she begged, and he stared at her, innocent and trusting. She pulled him against her chest, inhaling his scent, maybe for the last time. 

“Things are going to change very fast for you and I need you to remember this.”

“I don’t understand,” he mumbled, exhaustion weighing heavily on his shoulders as he leaned against her. He must have been so scared to drop so quickly once he felt safe. 

Ursa squeezed her eyes shut and kissed his brow. “Everything I've done, I've done to protect you. Remember this Zuko, no matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are.”

“Mom?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

“Shhhhh, don’t worry about it, just remember what I’ve said and go back to sleep. It’s going to be okay.” The lie felt like ash on her tongue but she couldn’t bear to tell him anything else. 

He nodded and she gently lowered him back onto his bed, resting his head on his pillow, which he curled into immediately, the fear that had been holding him taunt draining from his body. She tucked a loose lock of hair behind his ear and wished that he could remain this carefree forever, but the knowledge that his normal life would be ripped from him come morning made her throat close. 

She didn’t want to leave him. 

She didn’t want to leave Azula either, but for different reasons. She knew leaving her daughter with that man would only twist her further, but she had no choice. If either of her children would survive the coming day she had to leave. 

Pressing a final kiss against his forehead, Ursa reluctantly got up, leaving her son nested under his covers. She forced herself to walk away, but at the doors she paused. She glanced behind her, wanting to drink in his features one more time, after all, she didn't know if she would ever see her son again. 

However, when she looked back, someone else was sitting where she had, gazing back at her. 

Ursa’s heart leapt into her throat until she registered who it was. She looked like any other noblewoman, elegant, and composed, except her elaborate robes were white with golden trim and her hair looked like spun sunlight. 

Ursa didn’t dare move as the woman smoothed back Zuko's hair, pale fingers running over the dark strands. 

Ursa knew who she was, had known since she herself was a child, and tried to tell herself that she wasn't afraid. 

It was a lie. 

There was only one reason why someone like _her_ would appear before humans, and it spelled uncertain things for the future. 

The woman glanced towards Ursa and her eyes were ancient and full of things she couldn't fathom. Nothing in her gaze was judgemental, yet Urza felt the weight of them like a death sentence. 

_You're leaving him here,_ they seemed to say. _You're leaving him with that monster._

 _I have no choice,_ she pleaded back. _If I don't, he'll die._

The woman blinked and vanished, plunging her son's room into darkness, even if no fire had been there to begin with.

Ursa swallowed hard and turned away, closing the doors after her. Pulling her hood up, she hurried down the halls for the final time. The white specter followed her all the way out of the city, only leaving once she was on a ship heading east and the sun's light touched the horizon. But she felt those eyes on her, an echo of a warning that she couldn’t remember. 

*

*

*

"Miss Lian, Miss Lian!" a young girl called as she burst into the room, flinging the door all the way open so it loudly crashed against the wall.

Ursa, who'd been sitting in her front room, organizing papers, jumped. Bearly stopping herself from going for the dagger hidden in her sleeve, she inhaled shakily. Even after three years, it was weird to answer to a different name. She shot the girl a mild glare.

"Yaling, what have I said about doors and opening then?" The nine year old shrank slightly under her look.

"To go slow cause I might break something," she mumbled. 

"Good. Please, remember for the next time you're in a hurry. Now, what's brought you here so late?" Ursa asked, glancing out her window and at the sun. Angi's eye hung low in the sky, leaving only a couple of hours before sundown. Which was why she was doing her paperwork now, when she wasn’t squinting at small print with only a couple lanterns to see by. 

Yaling gasped and the big gestures that the girl had lost during the scolding came back grander than before. 

"Yin's hurt! Ping's bringing her. I ran ahead to tell you," she said, flapping her hands in the direction she'd come.

"How is Yin hurt?" Ursa asked gently, already moving into the side room which doubled as a small clinic and where she kept her medical equipment. 

Yaling followed her, babbling. "We were out by the river, you know the bank with all the fish? Ping wanted to catch some for dinner cause dads away fighting and now we have to help out. Anyway, Yin was looking closer to the forest and I dunno what she did but the next thing I know she's screaming about a king lizard or something. Her leg's all red." 

As she listened to the child, Ursa had been pulling out bandages and setting water to boil, making a tea Yin could drink that had pain numbing herbs in it, but her hands froze when Yaling got to the end. 

Turning to the girl, she asked slowly, "Do you mean _royal salamander?_ "

Yaling blinked then nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that's what it was. How did you know?"

Ursa resisted the urge to massage her temples and started pulling out burn cream. 

"Royal salamanders are distant cousins to dragons, they can spit fire," she told her dryly. It was bad enough that she had men returning from the front with heavy burns, why did the children have to suffer them as well? 

Any answer that Yaling had was drowned out by rushing feat and two eleven year olds burst into the room, the boy helping the girl hop on one foot. The other was red and blistering. 

"Get her up on the counter," Ursa instructed.

The boy, Ping, nodded and helped his twin over and up onto the counter. Ursa grabbed a stool and dragged it over, sitting on it so she could look at the injury. Assessing at it, she withheld a sigh of relief. The burn was superficial, only affecting the first few layers of skin. She would heal, but that didn't mean it wasn't painful. 

Her hands twitched in sympathetic memory. 

Pushing that down, she smiled gently. "Good news, it's not too bad. If you're careful and let it heal, there might not be any scar." Grabbing the little jar on the counter and began smearing cream onto the burn, she continued, "You'll need to put burn cream on it every night. If it starts to smell bad, come back immediately."

Yin, her lips tight as she pressed them together, nodded. She was silent for a moment then jerked when Ursa applied cream to the worse area. 

"Spirit damned lizard," she hissed between her teeth. "Bloody ashmaker. You can't even trust animals."

Ursa hummed noncommittally, leaning to the side to grab the role of linen. The village she lived next to was a sleepy little place, mostly removed from the war. Normally, she could pretend that she wasn't an outsider, that there wasn’t a lethal feud between their two people, until things like this reminded her of how far from home she was.

Even if she had no home she could return to.

Taking a deep breath, she started bandaging the girl's leg. “Yin, if someone suddenly ran into you, hurting you and you felt in danger, what would you do?” Ursa asked, keeping her tone level and pleasant. 

Yin blinked and shot a look at her brother, who shrugged, a bewildered expression on his face. Yin’s green eyes flicked back to Ursa, a frown pulling at her lips.

“Say sorry?” Yaling supplied helpfully but Yin was already shaking her head, with an unhappy tist to her lips. 

“Defend myself.” Ursa nodded.

“And if your only defense was fire?” Yin looked down, a contrite but stubborn scowl on her face.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt it,” she argued. 

Ursa pursed her lips and nodded. “But did it know that? You’re really big and it’s really small, Yin. You probably scared it a lot.”

Yin’s scowl turned a little more thoughtful, but she didn’t say anything more, mulishly turning her head away and not looking at her. Ursa didn’t expect anything else. She’d learned very quickly that earthbenders and their kin were as immovable as their element. Honestly, some days she wondered if Zuko should have been an earthbender instead of a firebender. He would definitely give these people headaches with how stubborn he could be.

The second that thought crossed her mind, Ursa had to close her eyes to hide the pain. She missed her son. She missed him and his sister, despite everything, almost every day. 

Taking a deep breath she focused on wrapping this girl's injury, letting Yaling’s chatter fill the air. Yin hissed and winched a couple more times but soon enough Ursa was sitting back, lightly patting the her knee. 

“There. Remember to stay off it and give it time to heal,” Ursa instructed as she got up. The kettle had long since finished steeping and she handed the cup to the girl, watching her drink every drop.

“We’ll watch out for her, Miss Lian,” Ping promised as Yin made a face at the taste of the tea. Too bad, she wasn’t Iroh, her teas were made to heal.

When she finished, Yin gave back the cup and allowed Ping to help her to her feet. Before they left, Ursa gave the sibling a small jar of ointment, so she could keep treating her burn on her own. The siblings thanked her and promised payment in food and helping hands when she needed it.

Ursa smiled and ushered them out. Since the sun was setting, she warned them to be careful then watched the three children disappear into the shaded forest, at least using the dirt path back to the village. 

Standing at her open door, she watched them leave, allowing herself a heavy sigh. For _children_ to view her people as nothing more than monsters… 

She shook her head and went back into her little home, locking the door behind her. Passing through her kitchen and to the only other room, she entered her workroom. Drying bundles of herbs hung from the exposed rafters. Running her fingers over the lower leaves, she tested them until she pulled down a bundle of catnip. Going over to her worktable, she lit two lanterns then began picking the dried leaves, placing them into her oval shaped grinder. 

She was just putting the last leaf into the bowl when she heard claws hit her open window. Looking up, she smiled at the ferret hawk that had landed on the sill. It chittered at her then sat straight, lifting it’s head to appear dignified, it’s wings folding neatly on it’s back. 

“Hello Jia,” she greeted, reaching out and scratching behind the animal's soft ear. “Do you have a message for me?” Jia chittered at her and lifted a front talon, showing nothing tied to her ankle. 

Ursa nodded and fished out a treat for her anyway. Jia pounced on the bit of dried meat, snapping it up with her beak right from her hand. It was gone in seconds and Jia looked at her hopefully, tilting her head. Ursa rolled her eyes. 

“No, you spoiled girl, go take a nap in your hammock,” she suggested, gesturing to the small hanging bed suspended between two cabinets and the wall. 

Jia squawked, displeased, but flew over there without any further argument. She turned around three times before she flopped down, her head hanging over to the edge, intent on watching her work.

Ursa chuckled, amused by the creature's antics. Under Jia’s careful watch, she got back to work, grinding up the catnip so she could make it into a tea later. By the time she’d finished, storing the crushed herbs in a small bag, Ursa yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. 

A chittering to her right drew her attention and Ursa glanced up at Jia to see her beige and brown head still hooked over the side of the hammock, orange eyes narrowed. 

“I know, Jia—it’s passed sundown,” she told the cranky creature. “I’ll go to bed soon.”

Jia sneezed, somehow making it sound far more judgmental than should be possible. 

“I will,” Ursa insisted. “Just let me put this away.” 

Jia chittered again and her head disappeared behind the cloth, hiding from her. Ursa snorted and picked up the bag. Moving to the wall covered in cabinets and drawers, she stored it with other fever reducers. 

“Okay, Jia,” she said, stepping back. “You coming?”

Squeaking, Jia lept from her hammock and flew over to land on her back, climbing up her outer robe until she sat on her shoulder, nuzzling her cheek. Ursa chuckled, running a finger down Jia’s narrow face and beak. 

Passing through her home, she was just about to snuff the lanterns in the front room when Jia suddenly tensed, the feathers at the back of her head standing on end. Ursa froze too. 

“What is it?” she whispered. Jia clacked her beak together twice before launching from her shoulder, flying up to one of the multiple perches near the ceiling.

Ursa swallowed, drawing her hidden dagger. Jia had signaled that company was coming, just like she’d been trained to do. That could mean a villager had hurt themselves in the night, but with everything that she has done, the chances that it was an attack outweighed the possibility that it wasn't.

When the knock on her door came, it was soft, yet hurried. However, it wasn’t someone just randomly hitting their fist against the door, but in a specific pattern. 

Her heart in her throat, she quickly seethed her weapon, knowing she would not need it. Leaping forwards, she fumbled with the lock before yanking the door open. There was only one person who used that tune and he was supposed to be halfway across the world. Sure enough, a stout man with a gray beard and hair stood in the light coming from her house. 

“Iroh,” she greeted in a rushed exhale. “What’s happened?” She didn’t ask what he was doing at her home so late at night. There were few reasons as to why he’d seek her out, not when he had duties elsewhere. 

When his eyes met hers, the same amber colour of her own, she felt the blood drain from her face. His gaze was hooded and filled with sorrow, a pain so potent that she could almost feel it. 

“Ursa, I-I'm,” he croaked, his voice thick with a complicated mix of emotions, ones she didn’t have time to unravel because a breath later she noticed that Iroh wasn’t alone. He was carrying someone on his back, a hood obscuring their features.

“Get inside,” she barked, stepping back. “What am I looking at?” she asked as she started a mental list of the things she would need to heal this person.

“Burn,” Iroh told her shortly. Ursa wasn’t surprised and marched to her clinic, Iroh following her without prompting.

“How bad is it? And where?” she asked, every lantern in the room flaring into life, illuminating the space that they needed. When he entered behind her, she waved a hand to the far side of the room, guesting the bed set up there. 

“Face. Third degree—at least,” he answered as he went over and gently lowered his companion onto the mattress. 

Ursa grunted in acknowledgment, gathering all her tools on the counter. She glanced at them then did a double take as she watched Iroh lay them down, noticing how small they were.

“Is that a _child?_ ” she barked, shooting him a sharp look.

Iroh whirled to stare at her. She didn’t like the shock or devastation that overcame his features. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, like his voice wasn’t working. Knowing what shock could do to someone, she ignored it. 

“What happened? Where did you find them?” she asked instead, hoping that he’d answer at least _one_ of her questions.

If anything, Iroh looked worse, his eyes hazy with a kind of emotional devastation that pierced the heart. 

Ursa pressed her lips into a line. She wanted to comfort the man but there was an injured child right in front of her that needed her help. 

Marching towards the bed, she reached down, gently removing the hood that was obscuring the kid’s face. 

“Ursa—wait!” Iroh started, but she was already pushing it back. 

The hood fell away, showing a face too young for the size of the bandages that were covering his left eye. It was rushed and a little loose but that she could easily fix. 

That was not what caused her to freeze, ice filling her veins when there should be fire. 

She knew that face. 

Under the baby fat, the boy—he was almost thirteen—had aristocratic features, high cheekbones and unblemished skin, excluding his wound. His black hair was cut very short, like all of it had been shaved recently. 

With numb fingers, feeling like she was only half there, she unwrapped the bandage, so she could see the damage. The severity of his wound was unspeakable, and that it had happened at all was even worse. 

Happened because she wasn’t _there_.

Ranging from the edge of his nose to past his ear, and spanning over his brow to his cheekbone, was one of the nastiest burns she’d ever seen. It had definitely dug deep into his skin and the surface was dark red. The chances that his eye hadn't been permanently damaged were slim.

Numbly, she rocked back on her heels, leaning away from the boy, like it would change what she was seeing. The scars covering her hands ached, burning with cold fire. 

No. No, it couldn’t be. 

But it was.

She knew that face. She had watched him age from infant to toddler to child, but she was still shocked to see how much he had grown. 

"Zuko," she sobbed. "Oh, my baby. How did this happen?" With trembling fingers, she reached down to cup his uninjured cheek, like she used to. In the past, he always nuzzled into her palm, a shy, sweet smile on his lips. 

Now, he _flinched_ —jerking away from her touch. 

She withdrew quickly, alarmed. He shouldn’t be conscious enough to react to outside stimuli. With the severity of his wound, the amount of pain he must be in would be enough to knock a grown man out for hours.

But here was her son, whimpering as he opened his good eye. She didn't dare breathe as his hazy gaze flicked around before resting on her. She'd never forgotten how gold his eyes were but their vibrancy took her aback anew. 

Sundendlly, she remembered a very similar pair of eyes, void of anything as they watched her, yet loud in their message. 

_You left him there._

Zuko stared at her for a moment like he didn't know her and oh, if that was the case, she didn't know what she'd do, before his lips parted.

"Mom?" His voice was a husky rasp in his throat, deeper than she remembered and tight with pain. She tried to focus clinically on that and not the bubbling melting pot of emotions growing in her chest. 

"Hey sweetheart, I'm here," she said, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. 

His single eyebrow—the other was _burnt off_ —furrowed, a familiar confused expression crossing his face.

"No, you're not," he slurs. "Mom's gone." He said it so plainly, so flatly, that it could only be a fact to him. 

Ursa didn't know what to say, how to react, because he was right. From his perspective, she had vanished when he was ten. Three years had passed since he'd seen her. 

Before she could gather the will and mind to come up with a response, his face scrunched before abruptly relaxing, his eye falling shut. Ursa was relieved to see it, although for more selfish reasons than she would admit. She had the time to figure out how to feel about this, and not forced to address it immediately.

However, even if he was her son, he was also her patient and that trumped everything else. 

"There's a pot on the counter, fill it with water and boil it. We need to sterilize the bandages," she ordered Iroh without looking at him. She couldn't, not with her son laying on her hospital bed, burned, when the main reason Iroh had stayed in the Fire Nation was to _protect him._

Fabric rustled and she heard the creak of wood as Iroh moved to comply, staying silent. Good. She didn't want to hear any of his excuses.

Which wasn't fair, she knew. She was aware that there was only one person who could mark Zuko like this and there were many situations where Iroh would not be able to protect him. Ursa herself had just barely managed to shield him from that man, and that was when she had been aware of the danger. 

She just needed a little time. 

As Iroh did the task given to him, Ursa looked over the burn again, bending to sniff the skin. She cursed when she caught the faintest trace of infection under the medicines already applied. 

Retrieving the antibiotic cream, she set it on the bedside table and grabbed a clean cloth plus some cuttings of garlic. She dropped them into the boiling pot of water that Iroh had started. They sat in tense silence, Iroh not looking up and Ursa not taking her eyes off her son. 

Zuko, thankfully, was still unconscious—eerily still. She would fear for his life if she couldn't feel the way his inner fire burned lowly within his chest. It was tiny, but there. Her own fire flickered as she kept her face smooth, her courtly mask in place. Donning it was instinctual at this point, keeping her from breaking where it would be unsafe to. It had become less of a necessary action and more of a familiar one. 

The only one here that would see her break was Iroh, and there was no danger in that. However, if she let it fall now, let the reality of this situation seep into her blood and into her heart, she couldn't help her son. So, the mask stayed on. 

When the water had boiled for long enough, Ursa pulled the heat out of the water and fished out the cloth she needed, twisting the fabric to get rid of the excess liquid. Now armed with the wet cloth, she went back to her son and began dabbing gently at his burn, trying to clean it the best she could.

With each touch, he gave tiny, almost imperceptible flinches. Ursa apologized quietly, but kept working till she’d cleaned and covered the whole burn with her strongest cream and gently pressed a pad of gauze over the burn before wrapping it. 

Thankfully, she managed to wake him enough to get him to swallow some milk of poppy, the strongest painkiller she had on her.

Zuko blinked at her once, with that same lost and confused frown before falling asleep. 

She gently kissed his brow, smoothing back his hair, even if the length of it made the action useless. Stepping away, Ursa half expected to see the woman again, her burning eyes trained on her. 

That fact that the bed stayed empty aside from Zuko didn't relive the heavy feeling in her heart. 

Not being able to put it off anymore, she turned her gaze to Iroh. 

He looked nothing like the Dragon of the West, with a commanding presence bigger than his short stature. Now, he just looked defeated, his shoulders slumped inwards and his back hunched with his failures. 

There were fresh tears on his cheeks. 

"Come," she ordered, keeping her own back straight as she swept out of the little clinic. Jia, where she'd been watching from her spot on a cabinet top, chittered and flew in front of them, leading the way.

Obediently, Iroh followed her to the kitchen, where she put a kettle on the fire and retrieved a couple rice cakes. Settling around the fire, she folded her hands in her lap. Jia landed beside her and rubbed against her leg before settling down, paws crossed and wings folded neatly.

Iroh took the spot across from her, automatically measuring out tea leaves. She observed the man that had once been her legal brother-in-law but had turned into an ally, a friend and brother in spirit.

Rage simmered under her skin, and although she knew she should be directing it elsewhere, when she spoke her words were clipped and to the point.

"What. Happened."

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are appreciated!! ^_^
> 
> you can come find me on my tumblr [heatherica45](https://heatherica45.tumblr.com/). I draw art and stuff for a lot of fandoms and fics I like.


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